US and Canadian customers were recently able to buy upgrade versions of Windows 7 via a pre-order discount. That policy has changed and pre-order customers must now pay full price. Still, that has not kept UK consumers from buying Windows 7 on pre-order at record pace.
According to BBC News, Amazon reported Windows 7 sales in the first day (eight hours of sales) surpassed the entire 17 week pre-order sales period for Windows Vista. UK residents are currently paying 50 pounds for the home version, and 100 for the professional version (both of which are full versions), which is notably less than the US buyers will pay today on Microsoft’s website at $199.99 and $299.99, respectively.
The analyst company IDC is predicting 177 million copies will be sold by the end of 2010, with 50 million of those being sold exclusively in Europe. That would translate to revenue in all areas related to Windows 7 software and services around the $320 billion mark.
The recent $1.3 billion fine and EU antitrust ruling against Microsoft means UK buyers will not be receiving a native install of Internet Explorer. It will have to be installed separately.
See BBC
Rick’s Opinion
Very impressive early stats. The $320B figure is not just in Windows 7 sales, which based on 177 million copies sold, even if they were the full ultimate version at $319.99, would only be $56.6 billion. The total figure will relate to new hardware sales, additional new software sales (modern versions of Office, Anti-virus, developer tools, all of it).
Windows 7 sales will likely fund the loss Microsoft will take in rolling out its Azure platform, at least for the first few years. Windows 7 will also serve as a powerful developer host to the .NET Services which will ultimately feed into Windows Azure-powered apps, with MSDN Premium services and what will soon be released as Visual Studio 2010 (download here, 700MB) and the .NET 4.0 Beta 1 framework (76MB).
